Customer Reviews

A History of Cooks and Cooking (The Food Series)

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Michael Symons has written a book that is both fascinating and seminal. Serious amateur cooks, professional cooks and cooking educators will find plenty of reinforcement for their roles in the craft that "distinguishes man from other animals." Symons addresses a wide variety of issues--the place of food in society and culture, the practical functions of cooking ("predigestion, detoxification; preservation), the thread through history of anti-consumption/anti-gastronomy philosphies; a conceptual framework for cooking technologies...if you have an interest, Symons probably addresses it). Carefully chosen excerpts from major food historians, chefs and writers add to the fascination of this very accessible work. At the end, I had a better understanding of why the "hearth" has been considered to be the "center" of the home and a more structured sense of why I love to cook for my family.

Random and Spurious. There is very little continuity and the choice of material the author chooses is more than a little confusing. The entry about knife's starts out with a server carving up her mother!? Also, the author overuses the annoying rhetorical device of Asyndeton; The sweet cakes, copuious libations, divinations of honey........
There were some compelling facts and tidbits, but not enough to make it worth purchasing and definately not worth the gradious title starting with "A History..."